Flyura Musina, ballet critic
Yesterday, the long-awaited opening of the International Festival of Ballet Art "Eurasian Dance Festival" was held in the creative space of "Astana Ballet" theater as part of celebration of the 20th anniversary of Astana. The event is expected and significant not only for professionals, but also for all fans of the beautiful art of dance. Declared last year as part of the events of the specialized international exhibition EXPO-2017, the festival immediately drew attention to the high level of invited teams, an innovative approach and a diverse program. The second festival, judging by composition of participants, promises to satisfy expectations of the audience.
The innovative approach was clearly manifested in everything this year - even the opening of the festival was unconventional and took place not in an official atmosphere, on the stage, but very democratically - in the bright and spacious foyer of the theater, the design of which was filled with subtle taste and meaning. Artists’ portraits performed on translucent silk, who made a great contribution to development of dance art in Kazakhstan, as well as those who adequately present the ballet today - decorated the light foyer. The decoration is as easy as flight of dance and breath of wind in steppe, and at the same time it is ambiguous, since the whole history of the national ballet was read in it, immediately set the tone and mood for the event - something extraordinary will happen here! And the first surprise was not long in coming: a performance flashmob, prepared by the famous Russian director-choreographer, the founder of Mime Orchestra, Alisher Khasanov, involved the spectators in creativity and improvisation.
The unsuspecting public found sounds of kobyz, which gradually and organically passed into initial chords of the cult music of Stravinsky - the famous "Sacred Spring" that gave a powerful impetus to development of modern choreography at the beginning of the 20th century. Suddenly, young dancers (students of the National Academy of Choreography) appeared among the audience, weaved their movements into a dance that seemed to be a natural expression of sounded music with spontaneous movement of soul, it's not for nothing that Alisher Khasanov called it "Dance inside us".
As in the past year, the Eurasian Dance Festival is held under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Sports of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and in his speech, Minister Arystanbek Mukhamediuly once again stressed that the festival bears the idea of cultural Eurasianism as the main concept of the festival; and Astana, which is located in the center of the Eurasian continent, is a point of intersection of cultures, and not just a geographical point.
Interaction of cultures was clearly manifested in the festival program, this year it is unusually interesting and full.
The National Theater of Slovenia presents two performances: " Five Tangos" by Astor Piazzolla in production of the cult Dutch choreographer Hans van Manen and "Pastoral Symphony" by Ludwig van Beethoven, staged by Croatian choreographer Milko Shparemblek. The well-known choreographer recently turned 90 years old, but he is full of creative power and energy, and by the centenary of the National Theater of Slovenia, he made a new version of his ballet, staged in 1986. Both performances are masterpieces of neoclassicism, and it is a great success to see them in performance of a highly professional troupe of the Lublin Theater!
The National Ballet of Beijing presents an equally interesting multicultural program called "From the Yellow River to the Song of Life". The symphonic ballet "Yellow River" is played to the music of Xian Xinghai, a Chinese composer with a very interesting destiny. In the 40s of the last century, according to the decision of the Central Committee of China, Xinghai arrives in KazSSR to get acquainted with the local musical culture. But the war begins, and the musician must remain in Alma-Ata. In difficult military years, Bakhytzhan Baikadamov extends a helping hand to him. A film was recently shot about this friendship between the two composers. Chinese choreographer Chen Chzemei staged a ballet to the music of Xian Xinghai’s piano concerto in 1999, which he called as "Yellow River" and which will be shown at the festival in Kazakhstan. I wonder if the music of this concert will evoke memories of Kazakh culture? Symbolically, is not it? As however, the name of the second ballet, "Song of Life" staged to the genius music of the Sixth Symphony by P.I. Tchaikovsky.
This year, the oldest Kazakh theater GATOB named after Abay will take part in the festival. The legendary choreographer transferred the play "Romeo and Juliet" by S. Prokofiev in the production by Yuri Grigorovich to the stage of GATOB by himself, and it should be noted that he was very pleased with the premiere. Since then more than 10 years have passed, but the ballet is still the favorite performance for both spectators and performers and is included in the golden fund of the classical repertoire of the theater.
Starting from this year, organizers of festival intend to include teams of folk dance - an inexhaustible source of inspiration for choreographic art in the program. The festival invited Spanish team Castro Romero Flamenco from Madrid. Laureates of numerous international competitions, widely known in their homeland and throughout the world, the dancers will present the audience with "Flamenco Quintessence". Grand Gala, in which the ballet stars from Russia, Germany, Portugal, Holland, Kazakhstan and other countries will take part will be the end of the festival and promises to become a real dance holiday.
However, a full sold-out is guaranteed to all the days of the dance forum, I think that the extra ticket will be asked far on the outskirts of the theater, as tickets have long been bought out for all the festival performances.
The festival opened with a premiere. “Astana Ballet” Theater, celebrating its fifth anniversary this year, presented A. Adam's romantic ballet "Giselle", the pearl of the world ballet repertoire. The play, well known not only to balletmen, but to everyone, even far from the art of dance, has long become a symbol of ballet, its emblem. It is not by chance that the poster of the famous Diaghilev's "Russian seasons" in Paris captured an air image of Anna Pavlova, one of the best performers of Giselle's party, made by Valentin Serov.
The ballet, staged by famous French choreographers J. Coralli and J. Perrault in 1841, did not leave the stage for 18 years, having sustained a record number of performances for those times - it was shown 152 times! But over time, it left the repertoire, and was irretrievably lost in the homeland of the creators, but, fortunately, carefully preserved in Russia. 43 years after the premiere in Paris, M. Petipa made his version on the Mariinsky stage, and this version was shown in 1910 by Sergei Diaghilev during his famous seasons in Paris. This show, which caused a storm of ecstasy by the Parisian public, triggered the return of the ballet to the repertoire of European theaters, the play found its second life here.
The Mariinsky Theater carefully stores Petipa’s version, the ballet was directed by Gorsky at the Bolshoi Theater, while some European theaters tend to favor the production of Coralli and Perrault. But whatever the version, Giselle is an ideal and harmonious composition in which dance and pantomime, real and otherworldly, airy and earthly are in surprising balance, representing an example of the "golden section" in ballet. Probably, therefore it was so unconditionally accepted by contemporaries and remains relevant and beloved to this day. Each young pupil of the ballet school dreams of this performance, great ballerinas of past and present have reached unprecedented revelations in this performance, every professional troupe wishes to have this performance in its repertoire. Astana Ballet Theater turned to the production of Coralli and Perrault, more common in the western theater. Therefore, domestic ballet-men shall not bother about writing the name of the French composer on posters and in booklets - Adolf Adam, then, from childhood, we are accustomed to the letter "n" in the end of the famous name, but that's how it sounds in the west. Why – the history is silent, but does it somehow affect the quality of magic music?
Choreographer Ricardo Amarante introduced his vision of performance, making some adjustments to musical and choreographic score. Choreographer’s main task was to make the ballet more effective, clear, releasing it from some archaic pantomime scenes and false acts, and at the same time to give realism and justification to the actions of characters. Undoubtedly, he managed to achieve this, especially in the first act, where scenery, light, costumes do not paint a pastoral picture of the Pezan life in the spirit of Watteau, but rather a realistic painting of "small Dutch". Rene Selazar's costumes and decorations create an atmosphere of authenticity and, at the same time, artistic generalization. Fine make-up, exquisite costumes, and full virtues of the artists who perform the duke's retinue in performance also contribute to this. Choreography of the act is also completely subordinate to action, the director even excludes the insertion pas de deux, the divertissement play in the ballet, and puts the dance scene of harvest festival on this music, with baskets of grapes, with incendiary dances of the peasants, weaving into the choreographic action the development of relations between the naive peasant girl and a disguised graph-seducer.
The scene of story of Giselle’s mother Bertha (Zaure Umbetkulova) about evil villis, which the girls who died before the wedding can turn in, is very convincing. Executors of main parties, Giselle (Dilara Shomayeva) and Count Albert (Farkhad Buriyev) managed to create images of their characters psychologically, while the technical side of their performance remained impeccable. Looking at the fragile, emotionally unprotected Shomayeva’s Giselle, it was possible to anticipate the tragic denouement of this love from her first appearance. Theater premier Farkhad Buriyev with an amazing aristocracy of gesture and behavior on the stage embodied the image of a satiated secular rake, for which the story of a peasant girl is another amusement, nothing more. The scene of Giselle's madness became more vivid, when Albert-Buriyev, always restraining emotions, suddenly exploded with a gamut of feelings -bewilderment, shock, despair, anger and powerlessness, from the impossibility to correct and change something.
The second act takes us to the other world, to the world of plotless ballet. But even here the choreographer-director adds a little human passion to the play, the jeeps are not so dead, they are vicious and crave revenge. Hence the unusual roughness and sharp postures of hands, and march-like movements of the corps de ballet and characteristic predatory posture of Mirth (Ainur Abilgazina), which became the leitmotion of the ruthless army of the villis. But the choreographer is consistent in his vision and convinces in the created image, due to the harmonious work of the corps de ballet, synchronism of movements, clarity of lines and drawing on the stage. An image of a ruthless element that is incapable of forgiveness is born and is ready to tear down everything in its path. And then the leading soloist of the theater Dilara Shomayeva again surprised and conquered, Giselle which reborn from fragile insecurity into a powerful force capable of resisting this element.
The ballet, which was born in France about three hundred years ago, preserved for descendants in Russia and returned home thanks to Diaghilev's seasons, today opens the Eurasian dance festival. And this proves once again that the dance lives in everyone's soul, it is inside us. It has no language barriers and boundaries and therefore it is eternal. And we are waiting for new bright impressions and new meetings with masterpieces of choreography. The next meeting is with the National Ballet of Slovenia. I'm sure it will be an exciting sight.